


Beach Day

by mrs_d



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Kid Fic, M/M, Slice of Life, Steve/Sam Week 2016, parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-11
Updated: 2016-08-11
Packaged: 2018-08-08 02:59:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7740757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrs_d/pseuds/mrs_d
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“<em>Dad</em>,” Roberta said one more time, poking his forearm where it lay on the armrest of his favorite lounge chair. </p><p>“Ow,” Sam said playfully, pulling back and rubbing his arm. “Go easy on your old man, Bert.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beach Day

“Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad _._ ”

Sam opened his eyes. He hadn’t meant to doze off, but Steve had settled the kids on the blanket under their big umbrella for a snack, and the quiet, combined with the long drive to get to the private beach and the hot sun overhead, had clearly made Sam ready for a nap.

He wrestled himself into a more upright position and turned to face his four-year-old daughter, who was standing at his elbow. The ends of her frilly yellow shirt and pink shorts were sprinkled with sand, and her pink-framed sunglasses were nestled in the puffy curls on top of her head.

“ _Dad_ ,” Roberta said one more time, poking his forearm where it lay on the armrest of his favorite lounge chair.

“Ow,” Sam said playfully, pulling back and rubbing his arm. “Go easy on your old man, Bert.”

Roberta giggled, her button nose scrunching up the way it always did when Sam called her that. “Daddy sent me to wake you up.”

Sam looked past Roberta to see Steve with their ten-month-old son at the water’s edge, about twenty feet away. Steve was holding him up by his hands, letting Connor bend his knees and splash his feet when the waves rolled in. Every few dips, Connor sank onto his bum, and Steve hauled him back up every time.

Sam suppressed a smile at Steve’s stubbornness. He knew Steve was trying to coax the kid into walking, since Roberta had walked early, but Steve didn’t seem to realize that he and Roberta were cut from the same cloth: they did everything fast. Connor, though, had his own pace, like Sam, and he didn’t like being rushed.

Speaking of, Roberta was now tugging at Sam’s hand. “I wanna go in the water,” she announced.

“Okay, okay.” Sam got to his feet and walked the few steps to their blanket and  umbrella. He knelt, the sand burning his knees, and dug in the beach bag for Roberta’s swimsuit. “Where’s your bathing suit, Bert?”

“Already got it,” Roberta said proudly. She lifted up her shirt to show Sam the bright blue one-piece underneath. “Daddy took me over to the change rooms while you were sleeping.”

“Did he now?” Sam asked. Steve never ceased to amaze him.

“Yup, so I’m ready. Let’s go, let’s go!”

“In a minute,” Sam said. “You need sunscreen.”

“Already did that, too,” Roberta said, almost a whine. “Remember? Before we left home?”

Sam shook his head. “Been too long, Bertie, you need more. Plus, we need to put some on your back.”

Roberta made a face that was a lot like the one she made every night when Steve reminded her to eat her vegetables. “I don’t wanna put sunscreen on. It’s sticky and gross.”

“I know,” Sam replied, patient but firm. “But you don’t want to get sunburned, either. Trust me. Now park your bum,” he instructed, pointing at the blanket with the tube of children’s sunscreen. It was SPF 60, and it went on pink, so the kids could see that they hadn’t missed any spots.

Roberta folded her little arms across her chest and jutted her chin out in an uncanny imitation of Steve. “I don’t wanna. I don’t like it.”

“Then I guess you’re not going in the water,” Sam told her matter-of-factly. “No sunscreen, no swimming. That was the rule, remember?”

He tossed the sunscreen down on the blanket and sat beside it, faking disinterest while waiting to see what Roberta would do next. He watched her think it through, her eyes moving again and again to the water, to Steve, who had taken Connor up into his arms and waded in, turning his back on the waves, so he could see Roberta and Sam. Connor kicked his feet, his toes making tiny splashes; Sam could hear him squealing with laughter from here, and when Sam waved, Steve lifted Connor’s water-winged arm and waved back.

“I wanna go in the water,” Roberta muttered, like saying it one more time would make it so. “With Daddy.”

“Me too,” Sam agreed. He picked up the tube of sunscreen again and held it out to her. “But we’re not going without sunscreen. You do me, then I’ll do you, okay?”

He thought, when she reached out after a moment and took the sunscreen, that she’d accept the olive branch he was offering. He thought that maybe she was realizing that there was no getting around this, that sunscreen was Sam’s unconditional condition to her getting what she wanted.

In other words, he thought, for one glorious second, that Roberta wasn’t going to be a four-year-old about this.

Boy, was he wrong.

Roberta flipped up the cap and squeezed the tube, making a big pink splat on the sand between Sam’s flip-flops.

“Hey,” Sam exclaimed. He reached out and snatched the sunscreen away. “Just what do you think you’re doing? Don’t waste—”

“No sunscreen!” Roberta yelled, and Sam’s heart stopped when she took off running for the water.

She didn’t get far — Sam jumped to his feet and caught her by the shoulder in only a few strides — but then she went into full meltdown mode, stomping her feet and crying actual tears about wanting to go in the water, about not wanting to put on sunscreen. The commotion brought Steve over, and Connor, watching his sister with wide brown eyes, started to wail a second later.

Over their kids’ heads, Steve and Sam exchanged a weary look that had grown all-too familiar since Roberta had entered her terrible twos.

“Trade?” Steve asked softly.

“Trade,” Sam agreed. He pressed the sunscreen into Steve’s hand and opened his arms for the baby, who hiccupped a little in surprise when Steve handed him over, but then just kept on crying. Roberta, meanwhile, threw herself on the ground and started rolling in the sand.

“I think he needs his pants changed,” Steve added in an undertone.

“Oh, sure, give me the messy job,” Sam muttered sarcastically.

Steve sent him a look that contained at least one word he’d never say in front of the kids before he adopted his Stern Dad face and knelt down to deal with Roberta.

Sam shushed Connor, bouncing him as they headed back to the blanket, keeping his ears tuned to Steve and Roberta behind him. He deflated Connor’s water wings and laid the baby down, so he could dig through their bag for diapers and wipes, while Steve told their daughter flat-out that this behavior wasn’t acceptable and that they’d go home if she kept it up.

It wasn’t that Sam couldn’t have said the exact same things Steve was saying — it wasn’t that Sam hadn’t said the exact same things in the past — but Steve was just better at it, plain and simple. Sam was the one who worked through the tantrums after the fact, when Roberta had calmed down and was embarrassed by her actions. In the moment, when she wouldn’t listen to reason, Steve was much better equipped to handle it.

Speaking of which...

“Roberta Darlene, you get back here. Now,” Steve shouted.

Sam looked to see her stop dead in her tracks a few feet closer to the water and wail something that sounded like _Iwanagowindawada!_

He shook his head and turned back to the baby. Thankfully, Roberta didn’t have many of these fits anymore. There used to be more, probably because Steve was always coming and going. Since Steve had passed the shield on to Bucky for good when Connor was born, life had fallen into a more predictable pattern with fewer unexpected trips to the babysitters, since, except in very, very dire circumstances, neither Sam nor Steve went out with the Avengers anymore.

Sam tried not to chuckle when he glanced up to see Steve drawing a timeout box in the sand around their daughter. Instead, he focused on Connor, who was much happier with a clean diaper — orange with a blue fish pattern, specially designed to go in the water without swelling. Sam wrapped up the dirty one and tucked it away in a pocket of the diaper bag, then sanitized his hands and grabbed Connor’s teething ring. He put on his sunglasses and settled Connor on his hip before he headed over to stand beside Steve, who was looking out at the water, ignoring Roberta’s slowing sobs.

“We going home?” he asked quietly.

“We’ll see,” Steve replied. “I don’t think so, though.”

“Good,” said Sam with a nod. “You shouldn’t have let me fall asleep there,” he added a moment later.

Steve shrugged. “You drove.”

“Then you get an after-dinner nap tonight,” Sam insisted. “You need your rest, too.”

“I get plenty of rest,” Steve said. “In fact,” he added, slinging an arm around Sam’s waist and pulling him and the baby closer, “I’m resting right now.”

“With two crying children and an exhausted husband?” Sam asked skeptically.

“Mm hmm,” Steve agreed. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Happy Father’s Day, Steve,” Sam said with a smile.

Steve nudged nearer, sneaking in for a soft, quick kiss. “Happy Father’s Day, Sam.”


End file.
